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I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go. — John 21:18 NLT

In reference to this verse, Henri Nouwen says:

Jesus has a different vision of maturity: It is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go. Immediately after Peter has been commissioned to be a leader of his sheep, Jesus confronts him with the hard truth that the servant-leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places. The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross…..

Here we touch the most important quality of Christian leadership in the future. It is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest……… People who are so deeply in love Jesus that they are ready to follow him wherever he guides them, always trusting that, with him, they find life and find it abundantly. (from In the Name of Jesus: Reflections of Christian Leadership, pp. 62-62.)

Words to Ponder

"The time is past for preaching and teaching that serve only to reinforce, rather than to challenge, the unbiblical assumption that Christianity is to be conceived of as some sort of an individual path to spiritual enlightenment or, worse yet, a commodity to be consumed." Joseph H. Hellerman, WHEN THE CHURCH WAS A FAMILY:RECAPTURING JESUS' VISION FOR AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, pp. 176-177.